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New England Patriots’ Third-Quarter Season Grade

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By @calling_allfans

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Coming into the 2014 season, most NFL fans and experts expected the AFC to be a two horse race – the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots. For the most part, that still seems to be the case; there’s still a decent amount of football left this season, but the Patriots (9-2) and Broncos (8-3) currently have the two best records in the AFC. The Patriots have been on fire since Week 5, but what is their third-quarter grade?

The Patriots began the season 2-2, and after a Week 4 beat down at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs where the Patriots looked awful in every phase, it seemed like the sky was falling, and the Patriots, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick were finished. However, the Patriots’ players and coaches didn’t get the memo that their season was over. The Patriots haven’t lost since that Week 4 debacle at Kansas City, and they have rattled off seven straight victories since.

Either Brady (2,998 passing yards, 26 TDs and six interceptions) or TE Rob Gronkowski (812 receiving yards, 58 receptions and nine TDs) could be named MVP at this point. How many NFL teams can boast at least two possible MVPs right now? It’s a really short list. Many teams don’t even have one possible MVP candidate. Without either Brady or Gronk, the Patriots are simply not the same team. Not many players, if any, are as valuable to their team’s success as those two are to New England’s. Even those who hate the Patriots have to begrudgingly admit at least that much is true.

That being said, it’s not just Brady and Gronkowski; the Patriots, as a team, are playing at a high level. The offense is scoring 32.5 points per game this season (most in the NFL), and the defense is allowing only 20.6 points per game (12th). It’s true the defense is vulnerable against the run and screens, but overall the defense has played well this season. Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia have done a great job of taking away a team’s No. 1 offensive weapon. The Patriots force their opponents to try to win a game in a manner in which they are not accustomed. Not every team has the ability or discipline to do what the Patriots do on defense.

The most impressive part of the Patriots’ season and current seven game win streak may be that they have beaten four division leaders in that seven game span. Think about that; that’s crazy. Not only have the Patriots won seven consecutive games, they have done it while beating some of the better teams in the NFL. It started with their win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 5. The Patriots have also notched wins against Peyton Manning and the Broncos, Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts, and Calvin Johnson and the Detroit Lions (now one game behind the Green Bay Packers after Sunday’s action), and they beat those four division leaders by an average of 23.75 points! That’s unbelievably impressive.

If only the past seven games the Patriots played were taken into account, it would be an automatic A+ for a grade. But we have to look at the entire season thus far, and that means the first four games in which they had two losses, so they have to be downgraded just a bit.

Third-Quarter Season Grade: A

Justin Patrick is a New England Patriots writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @calling_allfans, like him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google. You can also email him at [email protected].

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